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The Tate Gallery

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'This drawing is Barry's first conception, at least that has survived, of a proposed painting celebrating the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. This act, which was passed on 1 January 1801, provided for the legislative union of the two islands. William Pitt the Younger, the head of Britain's government, had earlier pressed for Irish reforms, but they were too slow in coming and discontent erupted in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. In order to remedy a deteriorating situation, Pitt first engineered the dissolution of the dispotic Irish parliament, and he then planned, after securing the Act of Union, to introduce Catholic emancipation, thereby allowing Ireland's oppressed majority to be represented in parliament for the first time. King George III, however, opposed emancipation, and Pitt resigned rather than force the issue. Despite the unfortunate conclusion of Pitt's scheme, Barry stubbornly held to hope that the Union would eventually lead to meaningful reforms in a country that had already suffered so much from a long legacy of misrule. In this early conception of his subject, Great Britain and Ireland meet as equals, the scale held by the angel being evenly balanced. The Bible held by the sister countries testifies to their mutual Christian faith, whether Anglican, Protestant or Catholic. On the front of the altar is a scene illustrating one of Aesop's fables, in which the rods, easily broken singly but not together, demonstrate that in union there is strength. In the right background, images of destruction, envy, deceit, war and folly are dispersed by divine thunderbolts. Lower down on the right, a statesman (possibly William Pitt) lectures his colleagues on the benefits of this happy merger.' (Pressly, 144-5)